Will illness outbreaks impact major events?

Jessica Pickens

Thursday

Sep 19, 2013 at 12:01 AMSep 19, 2013 at 5:37 PM

In the past year, two illness outbreaks have emerged from major county events. An E. coli outbreak developed after the 2012 Cleveland County Fair, sickening more than 100 and leading to a toddler's death. And, just this week, health officials have linked a salmonella outbreak to a recent church barbecue fundraiser. Health officials said Thursday that at least 54 people have reported being sick after the Sept. 7 Sandy Plains Baptist Church barbecue fundraiser, an event that's happened for more than 50 years and usually serves about 5,000 people. What do these illnesses mean for events such as the fair, the barbecue fundraiser and the upcom-ing Hog Happnin' benefit for Cleveland County children? “I don’t anticipate this will effect the event in the future,” said Sandy Plains Baptist Church Pas-tor Garin Hill. “We are now working with the health department to get to the bottom of this so we can avoid it in the future.” Hog Happnin' leaders said they are aware of the concerns associated with the ongoing salmonella outbreak. Extra hand-washing stations will be added for this year's event, set for Nov. 2, and non-food vendors will have to prepackage food items they're selling and meet health department standards, said organizer Lloyd Williams. “Last year we started selling our barbecue through only vendors,” Williams said. “Vendors are required to get an inspection and go through a process with the health department before they are allowed to sell barbecue. “None of these changes were made because of what happened at Sandy Plains,” he said. “We had already made the changes to the event, but it has made us more aware and conscious.” The Cleveland County Fair, set to begin next Thursday, also has food vendors inspected by the health department prior to the event “The fair is responsible for the proper location of all food vendors and to confirm that they meet all of our contractual rules and regulations,” said fair association lawyer O. Max Gardner III. “Each food vendor must be approved and certified by the Cleveland County Department of Health before they can offer any food products for sale to the general public.” The food source of the salmonella outbreak is not yet known, said DeShay Oliver, the health de-partment's public information officer. “The state is developing questionnaires to conduct interviews with the cases and controls,” Oliver said. “Hopefully, the interviews will begin tomorrow and be conducted over the weekend, and we will know more about a possible source by the beginning of next week.”